News & Events

The 2017 Ammonoosuc Oktoberfest takes place on Sept. 22 and 23. Please visit www.ammonoosucoktoberfest.com for more!

The 2017 Ammonoosuc Oktoberfest (Sept. 22-23): A riverside celebration of artisan beer and community in the White Mountains

When “world-class beer,” “culinary delicacies” and “mountains in the fall” are discussed in the same breath, Bavaria comes to mind. But here in the White Mountains, along a trout stream that meanders through one of the most pleasant small towns in the country, a group of great brewers and local food purveyors have gotten together to create their own intimate celebration of family, community and artisan excellence—and you’re invited. No plane tickets required!

Schilling Beer Co. presents The Ammonoosuc Oktoberfest on the banks of the Ammonoosuc River in beautiful downtown Littleton, NH—annually touted as one of America’s best small towns. Here guests will enjoy a one-of-a-kind celebration that fuses Bavarian traditions with a modern twist, bringing together approximately 15 world-class breweries and local foods in an incomparable setting.

True to Oktoberfest tradition, The Ammonoosuc Oktoberfest offers a spirited beer tent featuring full pours from premier Northeastern and Midwestern brewers. Beers will range from wild ales to traditional European-inspired lagers. Guests will be treated to pig roasts and delicious Bavarian-inspired foods from Northern New England’s best purveyors, along with live music, lawn games and other exciting surprises.

The venue will be on the riverside green located directly across the Ammonoosuc River from Schilling, accessible via covered footbridge (where the Littleton Farmers Market is held). A parking map will be made available shortly. Children are welcome during the daytime celebration, which offers activities for the whole family. After dark, the bands on the music stage will kick it up a notch and everyone will be singing “Ein Prosit” around the firepit before the night is out! General Admission includes one beer ticket.*

The VIP Experience

For those who want the ultimate in Oktoberfest immersive experiences, we offer a weekend VIP pass that includes a ticket to the exclusive Brewers’ Dinner on Friday night. Guests will sit among the brewers and dine on a delicious multi-course meal cooked by renowned chef, Adam Alderin, of the Beal House. The VIP pass also includes early access to the session of their choice, 5 beer tickets, entrance to the warm and cozy Bavarian-style VIP tent where tasty bites and full pours of special reserve beers are included. Guests will also take home a special gift from the brewery.

All of these activities will take place against the backdrop of Littleton’s art festival weekend and the onset of color season.

Breweries currently confirmed:

Brewery Vivant (MI)

Citizen Cider (VT)

Deciduous (NH)

Earth Eagle (NH)

Finback (NY)

Foley Brothers (VT)

Foundation (ME)

Honest Weight (MA)

Idle Hands (MA)

Kelsen (NH)

Medusa (MA)

Schilling Beer Co. (NH)

Speciation Artisan Ales (MI)

Stoneface (NH)

Zero Gravity (VT)

*Note: All beer tickets are for FULL 12oz pours.

For more information on the Ammonoosuc Oktoberfest, please visit the festival’s website.

Eighteen months following the creation of our current website, we bring you…the first blog entry! This inexcusable delay is largely due to the fact that we, Schilling’s ownership, have erroneously thought that we would/could regularly post on the blog. Hah! Our apologies for the empty website space. We will remedy this in the very near future though through the good work of our media assistant, Ashlea, who will show us how it’s done.

Nevertheless, we would like to bring you up-to-speed with some recent brewery headlines:

That empty lot/pile of rocks to the immediate east of our brewpub? That’s the future home of our brewery expansion (completion target: early 2018). You can read the press release here. Don’t worry, the character and function of our current brewpub won’t change; it will only get more exciting, as we’ll continue to brew on our pilot system in the current 18th-century mill building. This will ultimatley mean the debut of many completely unique beers at the brewpub, coupled with core Schilling offerings, wild ales and delicacies from our expanded wood-aging/mixed fermentation area next door.

Head Brewer/Co-Founder John Lenzini recently returned from Weyermann Specialty Malts in Bamberg, Germany, where he was invited to join Weyermann’s Brew Master Dominik Maldoner, European beer expert Horst Dornbusch and Brewers Supply Group Technical Sales Manager Deborah Wood to brew several Old World lagers using brand new Weyermann malting advances. You can read more here.

Evan, our Assistant Brewer, recently brewed a Sahti, a primitive farmhouse ale with roots in Finland. This will arrive soon in very limited quantities. Think: gin and juniper.

As many of you will have noticed, peak times at the brewpub often means extended waiting periods for pizzas. We are working diligently to correct this issue, which very simply is the result of overwhelming our undersized wood-fired oven. Our solution? We’re getting a brand new wood-fired oven in time for the holidays, which will provide twice the baking capacity. Besides doubling our pizza powers, this larger oven will also eliminate the necessity of the dreaded “fire flip:” the agonizing 45-minute period (typically between 3-3:45PM) when we can’t make pizzas because we have to re-warm the oven deck. Ridiculous, we realize, but soon to be a thing of the past. We appreciate everyone’s patience, and hope that you’re as excited as our kitchen manager Caleb is about the new oven!

Thanks for reading, and most of all, thanks for your unbelievable support! Stay tuned for more frequent (and qualitatively better) updates from Ashlea.

Welcome to our new website! We’re very excited to feature the site design and development work of Nick Perez, along with photographs by acclaimed artists Randall Armor, Jenny Chang, Frank Lee Ruggles, Rudy Atallah, and John Downey. Nick has been terrific to work with, and all of the photographers have been extremely gracious with us. We are proud to showcase their talents here, and acknowledge how very fortunate we are to display their work.

There are still some site adjustments in the works. A few updates are required, some items need to be moved around, etc, but we didn’t want to delay publication of the site beyond what is absolutely necessary.

We also encourage you to continue to look at the blog site, and when you’re so inclined, interact with us. No, we won’t publish daily, but we will share thoughts from time to time and provide updates that exceed the scope of quick-fire social media. We sincerely welcome your feedback.

Above all, thank you for your support, encouragement, and interest in Schilling.